Sunshine People
by Reichenbach
Summary: When bad planets start eating good people, it's time for the Doctor to get involved. 10th Doctor. Third in the Doors series. Eventual Doomsday fixer upper.
1. Chapter 1

This one's for you kind, wonderful, insane people who've asked for more LOL.

You may want to read Doors and Devourer of Souls first (or at least the last chapter of the latter—explains who's who and what's what). I guess this is for all the kind folks out there that asked for a sequel : ) Seriously… you guys have been really, really nice. And to those that didn't ask…Sorry for being "that guy" and doing a second story with an OC. I'll be good.

Standard Disclaimers apply. All hail the Beeb for their superior intellectual property. Thankyaverymuch to Krypto and Erica for betaing happiness.

XYZ

"Sunshine People"

Chapter 1

XYZ

Staring up at the brown and grey buttresses, Violet thunked her head repeatedly upon the grill walkway in the TARDIS control room, each rattle of her tiny head punctuating each word of her declaration. "I. Think. I'm. Going. To. Die. Of. Vitamin. D. Deficiency."

Perched precariously on a piece of equipment, the Doctor stopped trying to make the two broken pieces of hose become one happy and connected piece of hose and chanced a glance down at her. "That's not true."

Violet's head rolled back and forth on the metal grill listlessly. "You can die from no sunlight, you know."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and went back to his task. She'd keep for a little while longer. "Go eat a banana."

Two more thunks. It was a good thing seven-year-old skulls were still partially malleable, or her way of expressing boredom could do permanent harm. "Killing. Me."

There was something distinctly 'Jackie' about the girl's petulance sometimes. "I feed you vitamins, so don't start in with that." Turning back to the problem at hand, he grabbed the thick white hose, trying to inch it ever so gently towards the other piece of thick white hose, while still trying to hold onto the sonic screwdriver and keep his balance. It was turning out to be one of those days.

The girl sighed. "Shoot. Can we just go somewhere sunny?"

Concentrating on the hoses, it was a few minutes before he responded. "What? Ya didn't like the caves of Linduspu?"

Violet rolled onto her side, propping her head up onto her hand. "Let me think. Dark, cold, no people, no sunlight, no 'outside,' and creepy little baby muck monsters. Nope. Want ta go some place sunny. Before I die. Die of no sunlight."

Hopping off his perch, the Doctor made the whole catwalk shake when he landed. "You're cuter when you're sleeping."

Scrambling to her feet, the girl pushed her mane of hair away from her eyes. "At breakfast, you said I was cuter when I was quiet."

The Doctor grinned. "And you're only quiet when you're asleep."

Sonic screwdriver still in hand, he grabbed hold of the railing and jumped over the catwalk before she could take a swing at him. Sometimes, this whole being in charge of another person was both easy and fun.

XYZ

Even with the welding mask, Violet had a hand in front of her face, blocking the three suns from her field of vision as best she could. "This isn't funny."

The Doctor folded his arms over his chest, incredibly pleased with himself. Completely easy, and entirely fun. "You wanted sun! I give you…sun!"

Violet's shoulders slumped. "I said THE sun. Which means only one sun. Please. Thank you." Oversized welding mask making her head shake around like a bobble doll, Violet flopped onto the scorched grass, arms crossed. She let out a tiny huff.

Pushing his own sunglasses up on his nose, the Doctor looked down at the girl. "We can go any time you want. I'll get ya something fun for dinner."

The girl looked up at him skeptically. "Not those chicken pieces with the smiley faces stamped in them. Those things gave me nightmares. And I'm stayin' right here. You're right—I said sun. I haveta get my fill of it, before you lock me back in the dungeon."

Sometimes, the Doctor was amazed she'd lived to her seventh year. He, himself, would have been boxed around the ears so bad his brains would have been stew. As it was, he decided that the best tactic would be to wait her out.

Leaning against the TARDIS, he left his arms folded across his chest, one foot resting flat against the door. Yeah, his brains would have been scrambled eggs by now. He figured this whole testing the limits phase would wear out soon. In the meantime—he liked a challenge. He LIVED for challenges, in fact. Even if they involved trying to convince someone who wasn't listening that it was, indeed, time for bed, despite the lack of sun rising and setting. He supposed he could just employ "tickle torture" every night for the next some-odd years. If it worked, it worked.

Despite the three suns and the baby slime monsters (which HE had thought were adorable, thank-you-very-much), he was getting domestic. The strange part was, that for now, he didn't even mind.

The suns could blind you, if you weren't careful. The planet itself was chilly, like a winter day, so he was wearing his coat and she was dressed from head to toe. She picked at the grass with gloved hands, shredding the crispy bits still further into dust.

He waited until he was certain he felt cancerous lesions forming on his hands before he grabbed her by the back of her black jumper and dragged her back into the TARDIS. So much for waiting her out. She was stubborn, this one.

Once the door was closed, Violet removed the welding mask and clamored to her feet. She brushed the squiggly bits of brown grass off of her jeans, and then stood up straight with her hands on her hips, maniacal grin spread across her mother's plump lips. "Too much for ya?"

Fighting the part of him that wanted—NEEDED to roll his eyes at her antics, he walked straight past, to the controls. "Yes, that's it entirely." Setting the time and location to some other place moderately interesting and mostly safe, he casually pressed a button and the ship started yawing in and out of time and space.

Violet shrugged out of her outer layer of clothing, leaving them on the floor next to the welding mask and her gloves. Entirely unimpressed and equally unamused, she sighed, and then left the control room without a fuss.

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, but just let her go. "What? I thought it was funny," he muttered.

The barely-repaired hose wiggled above his head.

"You know, everybody's a critic." He watched the various working parts push up and down as the ship hurled through space and time. There were only so many times and places that were moderately interesting and mostly safe and she wasn't having any of them.

Which was obnoxious. The girl was seven! She was seven years old, from a planet that didn't even know the Martians were still there, yet. She was seven and stories about bunny rabbits mailing letters amused her! Three suns should have been spectacular! She was supposed to be impressed with baby slug monsters, purple skies and pink water.

He was really losing his touch, if he couldn't amuse a small child.

XYZ

The Doctor didn't bother to knock. First of all it was his ship (he really was turning into his father, wasn't he? Overly possessive about his living space and falling for a human—next thing he'd be growing mold and making strange ferrety faces when he talked). Second of all, she knew he was there. She'd been radiating "leave me alone" since he'd entered the hallway.

Crouching down beside the bed, the Doctor placed the plate on the floor. "Anyhoo, gotcha some food. Nothing with a face, I'm afraid." He slid the plate under the bed then headed for the door. "I'm leaving, you can come out now."

Violet pulled the plate further under the bed. "You're not gone yet," she pointed out. "And this could have had a face."

The Doctor stood in the doorway, wondering what in the universe he'd done wrong now. Things would go brilliantly, they'd fight and argue and chase each other around. Then she'd be under the bed, reading a book about vampires or werewolves or zombies, and complaining about it the entire time. "Enlighten me, little one."

Pushing the plate out from under the bed, half-eaten egg salad sandwich in the center of the plate, she sighed. "Nothing."

Well, it was a start. "The thing about nothing is that it's actually secret code for 'something,' and it's usually 'something' that someone's mad about, but doesn't want to say anything because they think the other person should just magically know."

Violet stuck her head out from under the bed, looking up at him. "Yeah, ya kinda should."

His father always said not to look a woman in the eye, they'd see right through you—maybe women were psychic (or at least gave the impression they were on to you), but they should impose those same sorts of expectations on the males of the species. It'd make life a lot easier on everyone.

He leaned against the door. If only women weren't so… female. It would end all the communication problems in the universe right there. "I'm not a mind reader." Females really did need to just stop acting like males somehow just KNEW what the devil they were going on about. .

The girl began thunking her forehead off of the floor. Finally the Doctor had to reach down and grab her chin. He was sure she wasn't doing it hard enough to hurt herself, but he didn't want to have to explain the inevitable welt. "Ok." He grabbed her by the shirt, dragging her out from under the bed completely and sitting her on the mattress. "Explain it very slowly and use tiny words, my light bulb isn't well-lit."

The girl concentrated on his face for a moment before blurting out, "it's like your brain never SHUTS UP."

He really had no response to that, so he waited for her to continue…which she didn't.

The funny thing about humans, though—they hated silence. If you let it linger on long enough, they'd attempt to fill it. Violet walked right into the trap. "It's just ON, all the time. And it's SO LOUD. Even when you're sleeping. Your brain needs to SHUT IT. And if it's not gunna shut it, you need think out how to stop thinking about making sure I have absolutely no fun until I'm old enough to rent a car."

The last part was a surprise. He hadn't even been aware he'd been thinking about that consciously—or all that hard for that matter, especially the bit about being old enough to rent an automobile (being old enough to drive was still too young to turn her loose on the universe, as far as he was concerned), much less being aware that he was projecting it.

It really had been a long time since he'd been around another of his kind, hadn't it? He didn't bother shielding his thoughts unless he was around an obvious empath, and since the girl didn't look at him like she knew his every dirty little secret, he hadn't bothered.

Sitting back on the bed and resting against the mountain of pillows, the Doctor urged her to scoot up with him.

Once she was comfortable, he went so far as to put an arm around her. "First of all, we need to talk about low-level telepathy and how it's rude to project, but it's also rude to pry."

Tension left the girl's eyes, and he knew that this was, in part, some of what she needed to hear. "Sometimes…minds are like rice paper walls. You CAN hear things, but you have to train yourself not to listen. Otherwise you can spend all of your time angry or upset, or overwhelmed."

If she was picking out individual thoughts, she was more advanced than he was at her age (if he was even remembering correctly—it felt like eons ago—talk about out of touch), and he really did need to explain this now, and hopefully do it in a way that she could cognitively comprehend. He never had any idea if he was going too fast or too slow with her. She complained about the logical improbabilities of her monster novels, but refused to go to sleep without the story about the bunny mailing a letter.

Pressing her lips together, she seemed to be mulling it over. "But it's there. It's not like picking fruit off of trees. It's like getting pelted with chestnuts."

The Doctor nodded. "That's my fault. I'm going to work harder on that. It's also not all that polite to live on the other side of the rice paper wall and be shouting all my business at you."

Violet smiled encouragingly, like she believed that things would be different. She was still thoughtful, and he knew it was about his feelings towards what she thought to be 'fun.'

How exactly should he explain it? "The universe is a big place. There's fun that can be had that isn't dangerous."

Her eyes met his, and the seriousness he saw there was startling. Sometimes she seemed so much older than her years. "But I have to learn how to have plans and get out of trouble. Since it's coming for me anyway." The last was stated as if it were common knowledge. She'd told him how her dear mum had put down two invasions all on her own, and her family's propensity for going on dangerous/adventurous 'business trips.' She'd started out with a skewed view of what was normal from the beginning.

The Doctor let out a small laugh, trying to keep it casual. "What gives you that idea? Some day you're going to settle down in a house with a picket fence and a dog. You'll sit in your lawn chair and think about all your crazy times out here in the TARDIS and breathe a sigh of relief that you're finally living in a house with windows."

Hand twisting around the fringe on one of the pillows, Violet concentrated on the dark red and purple patterns. "That's not true, and you know it."

He wanted to tell her that normal people were the most important people in the world. They're who the universe was made for, not gardeners such as him. He potted and repotted and pruned and grafted, but it was for the view and pleasure of the normal folk.

She was too young to decide that a life such as he had was what she wanted for herself. He wanted to tell her that if she wanted to be normal, he'd help her become that, in any way possible to him.

He wanted to explain that he was nutty about this for a reason… but the Doctor never got the chance.

The TARDIS fell out of the Time Vortex, violently tossing both off the bed and toward the cold metal floor, sliding in one direction, then the other, bashing them on every side as it tumbled, whistling through some alien atmosphere.

It really was going to be one of those days.

To Be Continued…


	2. Chapter 2

Standard disclaimers, yadda yadda. Thanks to Chef Erica for the idea bouncing. I swear—I plan exactly two paragraphs ahead. And sometimes, than can paint ya into a corner. And thanks to Krypto for kinda sorta proofreading in that "I'd really rather be playing pokemon" kinda way.

XYZ

"Sunshine People"

Chapter 2

XYZ

After a forever of falling, smashing into something, and then falling again, Violet flew over and past the remainder of her sandwich, which had skidded all the way to the door, leaving a trail of egg and dressing in its wake.

The Doctor barely missed becoming one with the wooden dollhouse they'd picked up at an open-air market on Harzfus III. As things dumped on his head, the little wooden doll came out the front door, hands on her hips, scolding him for ruining the neighborhood.

When the ship finally stopped, Violet was in the hall, and he was buried under half a dozen monster novels, a week's worth of dirty clothes and two giant stuffed animals. It could have been worse, he decided; they could have been in the kitchen, and he'd be regenerating right now, pinned to the tile with a pile of knives.

Shaking the wreckage off of himself, the Doctor got to his feet as Violet crawled back into the room, frazzled locks obscuring her face. "Well, that was fun," the girl declared with sarcasm. "Maybe, next time, we can get EVERYTHING to fall off the walls." She looked up at the one article of clothing dangling from where it was caught on the sharp corner of the shelf.

He looked over the wild-haired seven year old for a moment, seeing her as she'd be in a few years: dying those dark blonde tresses a deep wine-red, dressing all in black and writing poetry about how the world didn't understand her and was a cruel, dark place. The only question seemed to be whether Violet'd end up on the punk or Goth side of the fishnet stockings and unfortunate piercing.

The Doctor shrugged. "You're welcome to talk with the TARDIS about her landings." As if the ship would listen. Brushing the dust bunnies off his knees and shoulders, he let out a breath. "Let's go see where and when we've ended up, then."

Violet's eyes perked up and she tried not to smile, but her enthusiasm was unmistakable. It took all of three seconds until she couldn't contain herself any longer and ran full-tilt toward the control room.

It really was destined to be one of those days.

XYZ

DEFINITELY one of those days.

Violet had shot out the front door the moment he'd opened it, before he could even check to see if they were in a nice grassy meadow full of pink talking ponies (her desire for where they'd have crash landed--not his), or surrounded by blood-sucking monsters. He was personally torn between a lovely bay at low tide and the blood-sucking monsters.

He'd have to pass on the blood-sucking monsters, but a few months ago, he'd have been right there with that one. Either way, she was not waiting for man or beast, or him to tell her it was safe and that ponies were somehow involved—she scooted past so fast he almost lost his balance, and she was outside before he could scold her to stay back.

With a whoop of excitement, she ran straight into the nearest junk pile, digging straight down into the chunks of metal and bits of wire, not caring for any declarations on his part about not getting dirty, or being careful because they didn't know what was in there. 'Course, he'd have been knee-deep in parts and pieces, if he weren't spending his time hollering after, so, ultimately, he had nothing to blame besides his own "superior" DNA on that one.

The sky was hazy and yellow, but the air was clean smelling enough, despite the locale. No rot or fungus in the air—just rust and metal decay. The junk yard, for what he could see, went on and on, possibly to the horizon.

Hands in his pockets, the Doctor looked around the place. There was an Endotackotron 4000 in pieces at one end, which was fantastic. It was probably the last one in existence (depending on what time they'd ended up in). Various bits and parts he could pick through and cannibalize for the TARDIS, scraps upon scraps of varying sizes and shapes of metal, cabling from every era and galaxy, mid-sized service robots in various states of disrepair, and a sixty-three Cadillac…a model which, surprisingly, had the most trunk room of any four-door auto ever built. Which, the presence of, if the Doctor knew anything at all about anything, COULDN'T be a good sign.

Hands in his pockets, the Doctor searched for signs of life (and trouble) before calling out to the girl. "Vi, why don't you stay close, till we know what we're doing here." She wasn't visible, but the pile she'd crawled into continually shifted, so he knew she was somewhere in there. He got a muffled verbal response and a glaring mental one to the effect that he was "sucking all the joy out of the universe," which made him smile.

The Doctor looked back through the door of the ship. "I thought I told you—no unexpected stops. Not until she's older."

The ship made no move to explain itself.

Running a hand over the top of his head, the Doctor began trying to ponder what could have dropped them out of time and space and into this place. "I'd ask you for a helpful hint," he grumbled to the ship, "but we know whose side you're on." Basically, the thing was a mercenary and (at least lately) was bent on making the Doctor squirm.

Hands still planted in his pockets and taking a few casual steps outside the ship, he continued looking at the piles, hoping to see some sort of control box or office shack. Talking to the natives might give him a rough idea of just how sort a leash he needed to keep Violet on.

Time and Space were no place for children. In that sense, he could see why the Universes would drag her into some separate place where he couldn't possibly get her blown up or lost or worse for the most vulnerable parts of her life. However, he wasn't entirely clear why she was with him NOW. Formative years aside, she was completely defenseless, and the Doctor was either being hunted by something that'd give sane people nightmares or just generally in over his head ninety-five per-cent of the time that he was awake.

If he needed to find some entirely uninhabited planet until she was older, he might just have to do it. He had promised Rose he'd take care of her.

And now look. She was excited about digging around in a filthy junkyard.

The Doctor had to admit he was excited to take a whack at it himself…but that wasn't the point. The kid had been cooped up so long that digging through broken, rusted widgets and whutchamacallits was like a trip to Disney Land.

Scanning the horizon in all directions, he failed to see anything that looked like an entrance, robot control station or office. Could this really be a forgotten junkyard on an abandoned planet? It seemed far too un-threatening to get knocked off course for, but his ship was still looking for parts to repair her little male friend, so this could just be a personal side trip for the TARDIS.

Of course, if that were the case why had she tossed them around like that?

Maybe she was really, REALLY annoyed with one or both of them.

Kicking around some of the debris that had fallen off of various piles, the Doctor found a grapefruit-sized box with wires hanging off of it like a tassel. Turning it over in his hands, he inspected it appreciatively. These little beauties were all but lost, and here was one, just rusting away on the ground.

He knew what it was and what it was for—he just had no idea what the heck he'd ever do with it. Shrugging, he slid it into his outer coat pocket. Oh well—it'd make a nice fish bowl too…maybe for a Lwellin Beta fish. Adorable, but nasty, temperamental little creatures—just perfect for Violet.

Speaking of trouble…

Looking back to the junk pile the girl had taken a swan dive into; he couldn't see any movement in the mass of metal and wire. Great. "Violet! What're ya up to…"

Making his way to the stack, he began poking at the refuse with his trainer, trying to figure out where she'd gotten off to. "Vi… I'd like you to come out now," he called out evenly. "There's loads of stuff here that you could get hurt on…"

A stack off to his left that was about a foot taller than he was shifted slightly. Not wanting to let on just how unnerved he was, the Doctor took his time walking over to it. "Alright, Violet. That's enough, now. We're going to look for somebody in charge, then we're going to buy some parts for the ship, then we're going to leave. In that order." Violet didn't appear. "Right now."

Prodding the heap of metal with his shoe, he made it shift, the top few feet of the wreckage spilling down to the base of the mound and landing at his ankles. "Vi, I am quite serious…" Looking back up from the scrap at his feet, he came face-to-dome with something that made both hearts stop.

The oxidized, dented dome swiveled, the round external-camera piece looking the Doctor square in the eye as though it were looking straight through him. Immediately, the blood rushed right out of his head as his stomach sunk to his knees.

TBC…

5


	3. Chapter 3

You know the drill with the disclaimers. Betas are a many splendored thing. And Splenda'd things too.

XYZ

"Sunshine People"

Chapter 3

XYZ

He couldn't breathe. The words 'clever plan' couldn't even work themselves to the forefront of his mind, much less being able to develop one. Five inches away from his nose was the metal appendage. The camera-eye of the Dalek dome looked directly at the Doctor then its head seemed to incline, as if it were looking him over, which they very much could not do.

A moment later the dome dropped to the ground and Violet laughed hysterically at her clever hat. "Look at me, I'm a robot! I'm called Bob!" As she reached for the dome again, all the metal and parts surrounding her slid away.

Before she could put it back on her head, however, the Doctor snatched the dome away from her. His hearts were beating again—slamming in his chest. "Don't EVER do that EVER again!" Cheeks puffing in and out as he tried to compose himself, the Doctor realized he sounded much harsher than he intended.

Instead of becoming upset, Violet glared at him. "I was just having fun. You don't even know what fun is." Mum said she had the best times with him, but really he was just the antithesis of fun.

The Doctor held the dome up for her to see. "This? This is NOT fun!"

Violet's eyes narrowed as she studied him. Mostly, she was mad that he was mad. She'd been having FUN, for the first time in days and days. And unlike that time he'd let her spend all her pocket money in a VR arcade, this didn't cost anything, and it was even BETTER, because she got to make it up as she went along.

He acted like whatever she'd done had been an attack on him, personally. Which was stupid. If she wanted to be mean, she'd just be mean. She didn't need silly games with robot parts to get to him. "It WAS, till you came over! It's just a piece of metal. I thought it was neat. But gee wiz, I mighta had fun with it, we haveta take it off uh me."

Violet's eyes grew wet, but tears didn't spill out. She'd been having trouble crying since she got here. Whenever she thought about her family, the tears would catch inside of her, never working their way up and out. It was part of what was making her so angry, right then and there. "I wanta go back home," she groused quietly, never diverting her eyes from his. She didn't want to stay with someone who yelled at her, out loud or in her mind and she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of looking away first.

Right now his brain was screaming louder than he was; air puffed in and out of his mouth, barely escaping past his clenched teeth, his eyes wide and almost on fire. Gradually, his breathing slowed. "I'm sorry." His apology came out as a thin, reedy whisper, the Doctor's shoulders slumping. Looking at the battered metal in his hand, he paused a moment before tossing the dome away from them.

Violet turned away from him, kicking some pieces of rubbish out of her path. "I'm not going to get hurt or lost." That's what she was getting, when his brain screamed like that—he was angry that she'd get hurt or lost, which didn't make any sense at all, to be angry with her about. You get angry with someone when they actually do those things—not in anticipation of them happening. Climbing up onto a pile about her height, Violet looked out at the rest of the junk for something even remotely comforting.

The Doctor waved a hand to the piece of empty Dalek shell desperately. "That thing… is the most dangerous thing in the galaxy. It's not a robot—it's a living thing inside a metal shell. And it WILL kill you."

Slowly, from atop her heap, Violet turned round. "Then just say so." She certainly wouldn't have done it, if she'd have known it would give him fits. "I'm not a dumb little kid." She was a little kid, true, but she wasn't dumb.

Everybody had always been trying to insulate her back home, too, and it had made her livid. It took them YEARS to admit that it was odd, or at least unusual, for her to have all of her checkups with Institute doctors instead of a "real" doctor… like one who actually saw kids, and not ones who cut up aliens between her appointment and lunch. "Just tell me things. It makes your brain scream less." And made her head less explody with overload.

The Doctor pulled back his jacket and shoved his hands into his pockets. The girl did seem more at ease…accepting even…when he was explaining things—even unpleasant ones—to her. He was an idiot—she was just a child and she wanted to know. It should have been more awkward if she DIDN'T want to know everything about everything in her world.

But why did these things need to be part of her world? "It's called a Dalek, which is a name that will invoke fear in every race that's contacted the stars, and even some that haven't. There is not a speck of goodness inside of them; they were engineered to kill, and that's all they do. If you ever see one—a real live one—I want you to get away, any way you can. And never, ever, EVER admit that you even known me."

She frowned.

Kicking errant pieces out of his way, the Doctor walked around her half-destroyed mound of parts. "They all know me, and they all want me dead. There wouldn't be anything better for them than to capture you or kill you, to get me."

He was blocking his words from her mind, but there was something else that Violet could feel—these things were the reason why he was alone. They'd separated him and mum. There was still more, but she couldn't make it out. It was so yawing and deep that she couldn't even begin to imagine what had happened. She also wasn't sure she wanted to try. A few nights ago, he'd told her about Pandora's Box. She had a feeling it might be like that. If she knew what that other thing—that terrible thing was, she wouldn't be able to go back to NOT knowing. "Ok. If I ever see one, I'll get away."

The Doctor sighed, shaking his head. He didn't want that. No, it wasn't that he didn't want her to get away—he never wanted her to come face to face with a Dalek. He never wanted her to watch her friends die, or her people, or him, at the hands of those creatures.

It would never work for him, but he was obsessed with providing a sane, boring life for her. When weighed against the dangers and heartache she'd endure, the joys and the glories of the universe seemed expendable to him; he who reveled in free will and the sentient mind's ability to decide for itself… he who'd never forced a companion to do anything… he was perfectly willing to force her into a teeny tiny box—so long as it was safe. And that bothered the Doctor about himself.

Violet regarded him for a few moments, trying to figure him out. 'Played you like a harp!' her grandmother would yell, whenever her grandfather had given in to some insane request of hers. Gran sometimes gave in, if it wasn't too insane. Mum—not no way, not no how. Mum always said she had Violet's 'number,' whatever that meant. She just thought mum was completely onto her. Violet achingly missed having someone around who knew her, faults and manipulations included, so completely.

But the Doctor? She seemed to have a fifty-fifty shot at getting her way. As long as what she wanted couldn't be construed as fun—and fun always equaled dangerous, in his mind…which she was still trying to reconcile—usually the odds tipped in her favor. Like the playhouse. He said he didn't like toys that made noise. She'd put out the lip she saved for her granddad, and boom. She had only asked for the little wooden family, and they walked back to the TARDIS with a big wooden doll house with the little wooden people that acted entirely of their own accord, and a little wooden dog that yipped every hour on the hour…which was all far better than any of the 'toys' Uncle Mickey had let her play with at Torchwood.

Sliding down the rear side of the pile, Violet stood on tip-toes to try to see her companion over it. "I guess we should just find something neat and get gone. I'm still hungry." She could have played here for days and days, but he didn't like it here. It made him uncomfortable.

Shoulders relaxing, the Doctor let out a sigh of relief. "It's not all that fair to make that kind of declaration, then expect that I'll just hop-to." he called out, looking for her in the piles. "Because you're always hungry."

Violet's laugh echoed off the broad end of the cobalt blue '63 Caddy, which was on its side against a building-sized mound. "I betcha I'd be full if you let me eat candy for dinner!"

Sounded like they were ok again. Despite his desire to get out of there, the Doctor found himself poking around in the refuse. He shoved a bit of wire into his pocket with the square device. This stuff was old and rusty, but not beyond repair. It wasn't like other junkyards, where most of the contents were broken beyond repair when they arrived or had since deteriorated and disintegrated into rusty echoes of their former selves.

'Out-of-place' was usually a sure sign of trouble. Which meant it was time to collect the tyke, regardless of whether she'd found something for her collection or not. "Vi, lets get going…"

Violet scrambled on top of a pile, holding a jumble of hoses spilling from a hand-held engine. "Lookie! Uncle Mickey had one of these, and he made it make espresso."

Good, she found something. They could leave. "I have a few things myself, so lets get on."

Nodding, Violet looked down to find her footing. Taking one step, she didn't even get the weight on that foot when she stopped. "You know… this place is weird."

Which was why the Doctor wanted to leave. His brain's desire to do something sensible was in direct contradiction to every molecule in the rest of him, which wanted to figure it out, and if he didn't just do the 'reasonable' thing fairly quickly, his brain might explode.

Glancing around at the ground, Violet bit her cheek then looked him in the eye, a very serious curiosity about her. "It's all metal and plastic. No bugs, no rats, no dogs…"

He wanted to commend the observation, but it also made him a little queasy. "Back in the TARDIS then," he said cheerfully, trying not to let on just how worried he was.

Clutching the silver and black part to her chest as she watched her footing, Violet took a step downward. Shifting her weight, she looked for the next large, heavy scrap to put her weight on.

Suddenly, the air grew thick and still. The Doctor began running toward her at full speed with no regard for his footing. But before he could even lunge for her, the pile of scraps snapped opened like the mouth of a dog balancing a biscuit on its nose, and swallowed the girl up whole.

The very MOMENT he'd dared to believe the universe had some grander plan for him and her… the SECOND, even. The Doctor to a stop at the now-closed mouth of the beast. "Violet?" he screamed at the top of his lungs, digging his hands into the debris, which was only clinging together loosely with some sort of static charge. "What are you? Give her back!"

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer, yadda yadda. Thank ya, so kindly, Chef Erica. And thanks to everyone for the feedback. You're all swell : )

XYZ

"Sunshine People"

Chapter 4

XYZ

Tearing at the rubble, the weakening field holding the pieces so loosely together gave way and went flying in every direction as he dug through the mess. "Give her back!" He got about half-way down, and the mass collapsed entirely, small pieces rolling all over. Kicking through the remainder of stack, he didn't stop his frantic dive until he hit what served as the ground in this place—a layer of rust-bits mixed with broken circuits and glass.

With a primal yell, the Doctor pounded on the ground with his fist. "Violet!"

He screamed again for the thing, whatever it was, to give her back, but the earth beneath him remained sadly and hopelessly silent.

Frantically digging through the other piles of junk, he searched a door, a hatch, another self-animated pile of rubbish… anything. There was nothing at all. Finally, on his hands and knees, he took another swipe at the ground, smashing around the loose, dry ground debris. He couldn't remember ever feeling this helpless—not even when he and Rose had been separated. His whole world had come crashing down, but he knew she was safe.

Rose. He didn't know how to explain this. Oh yeah, sorry about that. She was swallowed up by an angry planet.

Letting out one more painful cry of frustration, the Doctor took a few deep breaths and then slowly got to his feet. It was ruthless determination that allowed him to push those unproductive emotions aside. Grief and frustration wouldn't get Violet back. Cold wrath, on the other hand…

No…he wouldn't be stopped. He wasn't sending a message like that through the tiny gap in space and time that had opened simply by Violet's being. He was going to get her back.

Even if he had to tear apart this entire planet to do so.

XYZ

The white light was painfully fluorescent. They weren't just bright like those super halogen things that lit up the warehouse at Torchwood like a stadium at night. Those lights weren't as…blue. It was the only word. The light bounced off of all the white surfaces and she could feel the blue poking at her eyeballs, trying to get in her brain.

The creatures were thin and tall and covered in silver. They would have looked human, Violet thought, were it not for their bodies being sheltered in some sort of highly reflective silver cloth with crisscrossing quilt patterns running from head to toe. She followed them through the pristine white hallways that seemed to make up the underground of this planet (or whatever this place was).

After being swallowed up, she'd landed in a small white den, barely big enough for her to stand in. She hadn't remained there long—the two things had come for her. They weren't exactly the way she pictured mole people from the center of the earth to look, with their silver suits and round black goggles. Nor was this how she pictured the inside of a world to be—clean enough to eat off of.

They'd informed her that she was an "organic," and would be processed, and any resistance would be met with "regrettable" circumstances.

This was exactly the kind of thing she was talking about. She hadn't been doing anything at all—she'd been actually LISTENING to the Doctor for a change, and now look at where she was? She hadn't gone looking for it—trouble had found her. And did she have a good plan for getting out of trouble? Of COURSE not! He'd better have a really good plan. And he'd better already be working on that part where he got them out of trouble, because this was not good.

They'd led her to a lab. It was another white room, filled entirely with white contents, except for the clear glass vats. One was filled with yellow sludge, another red, grey, brownish…

Violet had a very bad feeling she knew what the swimming-pool sized vats were full of. She got the same Frankenstein vibe off of them that she got from some of the Torchwood doctors when they'd slide the stethoscope around her chest, something almost hungry in their eyes. All she could see in her mind's eye was a monster movie dungeon-lab with lightening crackling in the background every time they went to draw blood.

There was no smell; the vats were covered, tubes coming from the walls to meet up with the white lids. But the feeling would not go away as she watched yellow chunks blub into the nearest tub.

This was full of not-goodness on SO many levels, she didn't know where to start. Especially since she was being ushered towards a white door that looked like something out of those mad scientist films, it was so creepy and well-lit inside the tiny box that was about the size of a dummy waiter.

If mum were here, she'd know what to do.

Oh well, she hoped everything turned out ok, so she could say 'I toldja so' to the Doctor later.

"The organic will proceed to the processing chamber." Thin, hard fingers covered in the metallic gloves pushed on her back as the small door opened, and she looked into an equally pristine 'processing chamber.'

Realizing she was being ushered toward it probably to be reduced into bits of yellow and red and grey, Violet stopped, letting out parts of breakfast that must have been half a mile down her intestines from how hard her stomach convulsed.

She'd have had it all over her, too, if one of those painfully hard hands wouldn't have grabbed her by the collar, pulling her away from it. She let out several more hurking noises as grossness dribbled from her lips.

Besides wanting to not be "processed," she wanted, more than anything else, for her mum to wrap an arm around her and press a cool hand to her head. Instead, the moment her two captors were certain she was finished, they pushed her with their skeleton hands away from the mess, circling around it like a caveman fascinated with fire.

The Doctor could really and truly show up at any point in time now.

XYZ

The Doctor's sonic screwdriver, normally rather good at opening things that were meant to stay shut, couldn't find a door, much less open it. He didn't waste too much time on it. Swallowing down every unproductive feeling that attempted to rise up, he marched back to the TARDIS, a man on a mission.

As much as he wanted to just get in there and destroy the place until he found her, he needed information. For starters—a scan of this place. It was almost for certain that the earth was hollow, beneath the rust-dust and electronic bits covering the surface. But what was under there? Besides his charge, that was. And what was the rest of this place made up of, if there was nothing living—including vermin and the things that fed on the death.

Planets just didn't eat people. So when he found out who or what was doing this—well, they'd be very, very sorry indeed.

Stepping over the abandoned Dalek dome and kicking another large hunk of metal out of the way, he dug in his pocket for the key to the ship. Pulling it out, bits of wire slipped out. An instant before they'd have hit the ground, it opened up, swallowing him.

The fall was significant. Hopefully he wouldn't go 'splat' at the bottom. Either way—this was one way to get into the planet, he supposed. There was just one problem—he was probably going to have to save himself before he could save Violet.

XYZ

Violet backed slowly toward the door they'd brought her through as the creatures gawked at her mess, holding her breath as she went.

Something clipped her in the ankles, and she fell over backwards, landing on her back as two white disks slid across the floor, towards the puddle. They were white and round like skipping stones, and levitated just barely above the shiny white floor.

Violet's captors took awkward, mechanical steps backward from the mess and the chubby disks slid over it, absorbing every last bit of it in a flash of light.

Sliding on her backside, she tried to inch out the door, but stopped within the threshold when she saw something truly disgusting. The disks rose into the air when they were done clearing everything away, landing on one of the vats, docking with it somehow, and then dumping the mess in with the rest. They flashed several times, sterilizing themselves, she guessed, then detached, returning to the ground.

It was then that she realized both of her captors were looking down at her with their long necks craned.

She waved. "Hi."

"You will be processed. All organics will be processed." There was no telling which one had spoken.

Digging the heels of her rubber-soled Mary Janes into the floor, she scooted back a little further. "Hi. I know you want to… process me… liquefy me. And, uh, that's well and good. But… well, you want… organics? Right. Ok." Plan, plan plan… Plan…. "So, well, I didn't come here alone. Well, I… I didn't. So, if you want… more organics, then you should let me help you find the Doctor."

They each grabbed an arm. It was like having steel vices clamping down, beneath the gloves their talon-like fingers were so cold and hard. Like they were metal skeletons encased in the silver cloth skin. "He will be within our possession shortly."

Well, that wasn't very good. It was good, of course. The Doctor would solve this. But there was the whole part where Violet needed to live long enough to be bailed out. Especially since they were dragging her toward the open box.

Her legs kicked out as she tried to force them to loosen their impossible grip, but there was no budging these things from her. "Ok. You have the Doctor, very good for you. But, do you have our ship?"

They paused, looking down at her through their black goggles.

Which was all the encouragement she needed, her having one foot in the box and all. "Yeah. It's got organics."

"We will get inside. Not even a Dal-lek is impenetrable."

That was just great. Violet licked her lips. At this point, even a good procrastinate would do, if a stall wouldn't work. Stalling was hiding before bed, and making mum have to drag you out of the pantry. A procrastination was when you scrubbed your teeth so slowly that you ended up choking on the foam created by the paste. Anything would do. "I don't think so. He said nothing could get inside, if a TARDIS doesn't want to let you in."

Their necks lowered again. She still did not know which of them was speaking. Their voices echoed off the shiny surfaces, and it may have been one or both, she had no idea where the sound was originating from. "Tar-rdis?"

Violet nodded vigorously. "Yeah. But she likes me." Oh she so completely needed saved right now. Because the solution she was thinking of was really, really awful. "I have a key right here." Wiggling her arms around, she got them to let go. Tugging on her mum's broken shoelace, she pulled it out from under her shirt. Yanking the shoelace free, it came untied at the end, and she was able to slide it from the hole in the key. "Here ya go…"

Reaching out to place it in a gloved claw of the monster, she changed direction with it quickly and dumped it into her mouth. This could go very badly, but she was with one foot in the liquefier right now, so, really…

It scratched and burned going down and seemed to get stuck… but with a few more hard swallows and it went down. "Ohhhh-kaaaaay," she ground out painfully. "You need me alive," she said triumphantly.

But she was shoved into the box. "You will be processed. The key will be in the metal remains."

She scrambled out. "No! The ship's organic! The key's organic!" She had no idea if it was true--she didn't care if it was true.

But it caused them to pause, one with its hand above a white button on the white panel.

Feeling the key scratching at her stomach, Violet swallowed again, hoping it sounded to these metal skeletons covered in metal cloth as if her pronouncement could really be so.

However, if the creature's hand didn't come down on that button, the Doctor was going to get a piece of her mind when he finally showed up.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Standard disclaimers, bla, bla, bla pie. Thanks to Krypto and Chef Erica for the beta.

XYZ

"Sunshine People"

Chapter 5

XYZ

The first thing the Doctor thought of, as he regained consciousness, besides acknowledging the bitter tang in his mouth, was just how annoying it was, to be unconscious. There were all these things happening around you that you didn't know about, and had no say in. He wasn't a very good sleeper, himself. Fortunately his kind needed less rest than other species, and he'd learned to deal with even littler amounts.

The second was… 'where the hell was he?' And just on its heels… 'where the hell was Violet?'

He'd like to think that getting captured was all part of his grand plan, but really—it left him entirely unprepared and entirely defenseless. While possibly fun in other circumstances, it was thoroughly unamusing at that moment.

The walls were white, and the blinding white light stabbed at him as his eyes attempted to focus.

Something jabbed him in the stomach. "Wake up," Violet whispered.

Squinting, he barely saw her shoe poke him again, and tried to dodge, but it was about then he realized his legs weren't touching the ground. Actually, they were both dangling by their wrists from a pristine white wall from pristine white chains, surrounded by four white walls and no door in sight.

He shook his head, clearing the last of the fog from his mind. "Are you alright?" The words sounded funny in his mouth.

Violet shrugged her shoulders, twisting a bit against the wall to which they were chained. "Oh, you know how it is. I've puked up breakfast, then promptly ate my TARDIS key cuz you weren't there to save me. Yourself?"

The Doctor twisted against his shackles, trying to gauge their strength. Not budging any time soon was his wager. "Landed on the ground so hard I thought I was going ta regenerate, met these nasties that I couldn't see, cuz it was so bright, then got sprayed with gas because they were mad that I was putting up a fight, which they seemed so incredibly shocked at. You know how it is…same old…" He paused, the last of her words seeming to catch up in his brain. "What the heck did you swallow your key for? I told you not to put it—or anything—in your mouth. You could have choked to death…"

Heels kicking against the wall, Violet sighed. "Choked to death, or liquefied. I didn't think it really mattered at the time. I was following mum's rule of alien encounters seven-ninety-three. I hadta make it so they had a reason to not kill me." That was something mum and Mickey had always talked about among themselves, when they thought she was asleep, or wasn't listening—finding some way to get the bad guy to NOT kill you and finding some way to make him tell you his nefarious plan.

"These people—things… they're completely gross. They put you in this machine and 'process' you, and you get turned into blood and guts and fat and everything else. And they're made entirely out of metal. Which is even worse. So I told 'em there were 'organics' in the ship, and said they'd need my key… then I ate it. Bought me a bunch of hours." Until it, y'know, reached the end of its journey.

"Assuming they didn't get my key." Still not entirely awake, he grimaced, and felt something jab him in the jaw. He ran his tongue around his mouth, and then produced the key between his teeth. No place to put it at the moment, the Doctor secreted it back under his tongue. "No, wait, never mind, I have it. You could've just hid it under your tongue."

The girl made a face. "Yeah. I was completely thinking of that at the time."

Sometimes it was difficult for him to tell when the child was being sarcastic, being melodramatic, or was actually angry with him. She seemed to be having loads of fun with the sarcasm right now. "Well, good job, anyway. On not choking to death or being turned into mush."

Must have been how the key ended up in his mouth—it was still a bit hazy from the gas, which must have been absorbed through his pores in order to bypass his respiratory bypass system (say that ten times fast!), but he recalled the whole struggling thing had started because they'd wanted something from him, probably the TARDIS key. "So what do these things look like?"

Violet thought for a moment, looking up at the metal digging into her hands. This whole thing was getting fairly uncomfortable, if she had to say so. "They're like erector sets wearing tin cloth as a skin. With big black bug-eye goggles."

The Doctor nodded. "Right. I've heard about these things…but they never sounded quite so…euuug." He made a face his father would have been proud of. "Never actually knew of anyone who'd encountered them before. They're robots."

The girl's face was expressionless. "Good, then I won't have a ton of sadness when we vaporize them."

She did like a good bit of destruction, now didn't she? "Erector set?"

Frowning, Violet stuck her tongue out at him. "Your attention span's about as good as mine. My granddad collects them. Anyhow, what's the plan?"

"Hey now! I just got here. Give me a minute." He twisted his wrists around in the cuffs, but all that did was make the metal dig into his hands worse. He probably didn't have enough leverage to do the whole (really painful!) dislocating the thumbs to slip out of the shackles routine.

His jacket was still on his person, but he had no idea if he still had any of the pocket contents, so even if they could get out of their restraints, they might be stuck in the little white room until their captors came for them.

"What are those things doing with all the living stuff?" Every time Violet thought about it, it made her a little sick again. And she was used to eating Uncle Mickey's cooking, so she wasn't a weak stomach.

Trying to get his trainers to catch on the smooth wall, the Doctor attempted to find some sort of footing. "Two-fold. They can use the organic matter to augment their metallic bodies. There's no machine in the universe as efficient as a living organic being. If they take the material down to its most basic parts, then they can reform it in any way they choose. Second, if they strip it from living beings, instead of just scavenging, they can harness the energy that's released by the passing of a living creature, which is what runs this place."

Violet thought about it. She wondered if it was like this one thing she'd seen at Torchwood. "Mickey showed me a toy once in his lab. It was a little robot that they'd found in a wrecked ship. Actually, it wasn't much of a robot—it was a bunch of parts that assembled together and worked together as a whole, like magical sausage links, when there was an electrical current running through. Soon as it stopped, all the parts fell on the table, and they were just parts again."

That seemed to be exactly what he'd experienced with the junk swallowing her up on the surface of the planet. "It would stand to reason that the whole planet's held together like that. Otherwise we'd be Time Lord Soup already—they want every last bit of power they can get out of us, but what they really want is the organic material and life force of the TARDIS."

A bright smile flashed across the girl's face, and it made the Doctor happy that she was so pleased. This in turn made that part of his brain that over-thought everything involving Violet cringe. "So, if we let the magic smoke out, everything'll just float away into space?"

The Doctor managed to twist himself around so that he was facing the wall, which made it much easier to get a grip with his shoes. "You are frighteningly good at this."

Violet giggled, and it was again with the warm fuzzies in his chest and the perturbed tickle in his brain. He really did just want to see her happy. She might have been safe being cooped up on the ship, but she wasn't happy. "I've read lots of comic books."

"Huh." The Doctor managed to scrambled up the wall enough that he could grab the chain, just above his hands. "So what do you read?"

She tried to shrug, but didn't quite have the upper-body strength. "I don't know. Donald Duck, and the superhero ones. But mum says they're too smutty."

Nearly upside down, the Doctor got his feet around the chain, alleviating the pressure on his wrists, and giving him a bit of room to work. "Smutty? I thought they'd be too violent."

Violet watched him work for a moment, wondering if she could scramble up the wall like that. "Nope. She's the smut patrol." After that one time, when she saw Mickey pound the living tar out of that one alien that had tried to take over Torchwood, they let her watch grown-up movies. She'd argued on and on about it, for days and days, until her mum relented.

"But anyways, I need to be taller." She looked down at the gap between her dangling ankles and the floor. "I also need to think up good plans that don't involve eating keys." She was still feeling kind of yucky after that.

Managing to pull free a bit of thin, stiff wire from the seam in his coat sleeve (never knew when it'd come in handy), he began working on the lock. "That'd be helpful. I guess it's my job to teach you."

The girl grinned wildly. "It's what I'm here for."

And what a depressing thought that was. Fate or whatever had sent this girl across the universes, away from her mother and family, to learn dangerous things from a dangerous man who had somehow managed the impossibility of forgetting more than he'd ever actually known about child-rearing. "The first rule is that there are no rules." Sounded like a fair enough place to start: the things they never taught you at Academy that really could save your life.

After digging around a few more moments, he shackles opened, and he dropped to the floor. "Second—in lieu of a sonic screwdriver, lock picks are your friend—which is another lesson for another day." The day when birthday and Christmas presents would no longer be safely hidden.

Patting himself down, he found the screwdriver in his inner jacket pocket. Either they hadn't searched him over all that thoroughly, or they hadn't seen the need. It didn't matter-he'd take whatever bit of good luck he could, right now. It only took a slight change of setting on the screwdriver and Violet dropped into his arms a second later.

Still holding onto her, he changed the setting one more time and began looking for a way out. "Oh yeah, next thing. Really good plans often involve complex maths. Or dumb luck. Either will do." Finding the door in the apparently seamless wall, he pressed a small button, and it slid open.

As he ducked out the door, Violet wrapped both arms around his neck, holding on tightly. There was something that felt right about that.

"I don't think I'm particularly lucky," she told him, thinking mostly about being named 'Violet,' and how endlessly she got tormented for being named after a plant, and all the days she sat alone on the school yard, reading books with big words. "So I guess it's for the best that I can do some algebra." Which had made Gran insanely proud, but her classmates rather mad. When she arrived at the older kids' class every day for algebra, they weren't very pleased to have her there, either.

The Doctor looked both ways, and then went left. She had a sneaking suspicion it was a random choice; the hallway looked the same on both sides. "That's a good start toward coming up with plans that don't involve eating your house key." She'd miss her family terribly until she saw them again, but it was kind of a relief to be with someone who liked it that she knew numbers.

Coming to the end of the hall, the Doctor held her as far away from the corner as possible while he looked around it, then took another left after determining it was clear. "Here's the plan."

The girl sighed dramatically. "Finally."

Making it to the end of another empty hall, the Doctor glanced at her. "Y'know, you're welcome to get us out of this, if you're so clever."

Violet's arms wrapped around his neck a little tighter. "Nope. You're in charge."

Using the sonic screwdriver on another invisible door, he chanced a look behind them. "Thank you, oh-so-much. The Plan. There has to be a central battery, where they're storing the life-force. We break it, then we leave before the planet breaks apart."

Past the sound of his heartbeats and her own, past his labored breaths, Violet heard something. Metal hinges brushing against metal cloth. "They're here," she whispered, just as doors appeared out of nowhere, opening on either side of them, two silver robots on each side.

The Doctor changed directions, heading back in the direction they came, but two more creatures rounded the corner.

"You will be processed."

The sound came from everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Pressing the button on the screwdriver over and over, the Doctor got another door to appear. Ducking inside, he closed it again and jammed the remote operating frequency before the shiny men could catch up. These must have been young ones, he decided—they were thin and tall with probably hardly any "meat" on their bones; otherwise they'd have been in more trouble if the creatures could have been any faster.

Violet was staring over his shoulder at something. Ever so slowly he turned around, prepared to put himself between "it" and her.

What he saw ALMOST made him laugh. Sixteen Dalek shells, some on their sides, some in various states of disassembleage , all of them very-much empty husks. "Oh, if only these things could use their powers for good, instead of evil."

Searching around the walls of the moderately sized room, the Doctor found another small hatch, just as the door behind him began to pulse and grow hot. They'd be through in just a minute.

The Doctor pressed the button repeatedly, but the hatch wasn't opening.

Violet spun around, looking for some other way out, but looked back on the small opening. "Ooh, I got it." Working up a load of saliva, she spit on the floor.

"NOT helping," the Doctor muttered as he tried a few more settings. He wasn't sure on what planet what she was doing could be construed as help.

Violet continued spitting as the Doctor began searching around the Dalek refuse for something to pry the hatch open with. But just as the door behind them was lighting up red with the heat being applied, the hatch opened and two disks, heading for the bit of spit on the floor.

Unable to resist, he gave the girl a rushed hug that was really little more than crushing her to his side. "I take back every bad thing I was thinking about you, just now." Before she could make a smart reply, he put his TARDIS key in her hand then pushed her towards the hole, letting out a few forceful spits to keep the cleaning things occupied. "Access tunnel between the walls. Find an exit, get to the surface, and get back to the TARDIS."

There was a cacophony of sounds as the door melted in. "Wait, you're coming with me…"

"I have to deal with this," the Doctor said, forcing the hatch down manually.

The space lit up as soon as the door closed, burning Violet's eyes. "You will be processed…" The walls around her echoed with the sound, and she realized it wasn't the robots demanding that they be turned into mush… it was the planet. "You will be processed…" it was higher pitched that time, as if the walls were working themselves into frenzy.

Violet looked at the key in her hand. And now she was expected to escape from a hungry planet… alone.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Standard disclaimers, blady blady. Thanks to Chef Erica for the beta and the idea bouncing. And thanks for talking me out of putting the Doctor in that purple polka-dot dress. Just kidding ; )

XYZ

"Sunshine People"

Chapter 6

XYZ

Completely and utterly, beyond the shadow of a doubt, one of those days.

He could believe in just about anything, and he couldn't believe where he now found himself. Using the husk of a Dalek as cover from the ten organically enhanced robots who were trying to kill him while he tried to buy time for a seven year old child to escape from the center of a planet that he, himself, did not know how to get out of yet. Oh yeah, and he'd just given her the only currently usable key to his ship.

No, really. It was farcical.

Trying to shield himself from the gas, the Doctor jumped into one of the Dalek shells, closing the dome over top himself, trying not to contemplate the insanity of it all. Insanity aside—he wasn't falling victim to their specialty gas again.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

After only a few seconds, the gas began penetrating the shell. It didn't take much looking to see how—somehow these things had discovered, or invented, a device actually capable of cutting open a Dalek's outer casing. He seriously, SERIOUSLY needed one of those, whatever they were.

Either way, the shell wouldn't be a hospitable place for long—there was a star-shaped hole on one edge of the dome. It looked like it had been punctured with some kind of high-velocity blade. The metal had been pushed inward, then pulled outward again

Which made it an entirely effective throwing device.

Knowing he wouldn't have long before the gas got him, he sprung up out of the Dalek shell, shouting "Ha HAH!" then threw the dome at the nearest pair. The sharp edges of the puncture tore through their metallic cloth skins, exposing wires and guts.

Reaching beside him for another dome, the Doctor tossed it, this one tearing at the chest of one of the bots, knocking it into two more. Lacking the strength to continue bowling for scavenger robots, the Doctor scrambled out of the shell. He needed to get free of the room and into a place with clear air—his entire body was shutting down again.

Grabbing the dome of the up-ended Dalek shell, the Doctor managed to rush forward with it as a shield, deflecting the remainder of the unfinished and unstable robots, and out the door to slightly cleaner air.

Slamming into the perfect white wall, he fell one way and the dome fell in the other direction.

The Doctor rolled onto his back, fighting for consciousness. This just plain wasn't fair. Of course, these things ate Daleks for breakfast. What was one Time Lord? He reached for his sonic screwdriver to close the door behind him with, but his head seemed drawn like a magnet to the shiny floor, and unconsciousness took him.

XYZ

Violet crawled through the access tunnels, trying to find a way into one of the rooms. Squinting against the terrible white light, she pushed on access doors, but they wouldn't open outward.

Coming to the end of one tunnel with the prospect of turning down another identical tunnel, Violet rethought her situation. She had a TARDIS key in her right jean pocket, another one in her guts and, uh, nothing else.

He should have given her his screwdriver. He'd taken the staple remover off of her after she used setting three (it only had three settings—office staples, industrial staples and "everything else") to make all the cupboard doors fall of their hinges in the kitchen. It had been an accident (mostly), but that had been that.

Sitting for a moment, she tried to think. Having made the decision to just trust that the Doctor would get free, it left only one thing: the need to get to the surface before the whole place broke apart. But she couldn't even do that.

The Doctor'd really had too much faith in her. And why had he thought that these doors would open from the inside, anyway?

Because the stupid little disks that looked like curling stones got out of those doors, right?

Violet began working up a mess of spit. Maybe she wasn't so completely worthless after all.

XYZ

Waking, the Doctor wasn't nearly as bleary-eyed this time as last. He'd been exposed to quite a bit less of the toxin. But also, he noted that they were actually attempting to wake him.

He was at the far end of a laboratory and he was fairly certain Violet had seen the inside of earlier. About forty feet away was the box she'd spoken of—the liquidation cubby, if you will.

They wanted him awake. They wanted him to make the dead man's walk to the execution chamber. "Oh, see, you fellows are absolutely delightful." Suddenly, the Doctor 'got it.'

"You will be processed."

"See, this is what I'm talking about. Utterly delightful. You want me awake and in terror, because it'll mean more energy for your little planet. Which is commendably clever. The question I have to ask, is WHY?" He began digging around discretely for his sonic screwdriver.

"The organic will be processed." The floor rumbled under his feet. His two keepers were probably a foot taller than he was, and it was possible that the sound was coming from them, and simply reverberating off of all the smooth, shiny surfaces, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere at once.

It was also growing successively higher pitched. "Why do the robots on a junk yard planet cease with their primary function of recycling metal and using organic left-overs as fuel, and start rebuilding themselves as organic-robot hybrids?"

He let out an 'oof' as he was thrust into the small chamber to be liquefied and life-essence collected. "I will tell you why." They were both staring at him, but before he could give his incredibly well-deduced answer, they closed the door between them.

XYZ

The devices had cleared away the mess, then had floated away, back down the tunnel. Violet rushed to keep up. While they moved slowly enough when they were doing their job, they were quite speedy and maneuverable in the tunnels.

She hoped she could keep up, and she also hoped they cleared another mess on the outside of the wall some time soon.

Oh yeah, and she hoped that said mess wasn't the Doctor.

Nope, she told herself as she bumped into a wall turning a corner. He was the Doctor, and therefore he'd make it. Besides, he was a grownup and his plans were far better than hers.

She almost lost sight of the disks as they skitted on silently ahead—her eyes were burning from the brightness of the tunnel and the white devices faded right into the tunnel walls. When they went out some door she couldn't see, Violet was sure that she'd lost them, until she tumbled down the near-invisible shaft, landing on top of one of the cleaners. Its levitational ability kept her from plummeting down the several stories to their destination.

Spilling out into a white cavern, Violet scrambled to her feet as she went off after the cleaners. Just great…she was supposed to go UP. There had been nothing in the Doctor's plan about going down, and now she was entirely reliant on finding said way to the surface on ugly little devices that couldn't think about anything beyond clearing messes.

At least she wasn't in the wall any more, Violet thought. If she could avoid the robots, then she'd have a chance of finding a lift or stairs or some way of ascending.

The disks had stopped at a ledge and were hovering over a patch of pink that stood in contrast to this place that was making snow blind. When this was over, she was going to ask for a nice planet stuck in perpetual night to spend the weekend on.

Coming up behind the devices, she saw where the pink mess had come from; on the other side of the ledge was a river of glowing pink sludge, flowing silently in a counter-clockwise motion. It had somehow blurbed out of the containment pool A salmon-colored energy flowed upward from the center of the whirlpool to a big collecting plate several stories up on the ceiling. This was the battery.

The question was… what did she do about it?

XYZ

As the door closed, the Doctor worked quickly to reset his sonic screwdriver. How rude—they wanted to wake him up, and make sure he was experiencing maximum fear before they reduced him to soul-sludge and organic-sludge, but they wouldn't listen to his theory as to why. How very… Dalek of them.

Aiming the screwdriver at the three anterior walls, then the ceiling, he made the space rumble a tiny bit, but nothing visibly transpired.

And there he was, at the heart of the matter. This may have once been a landfill planet, its directive to recycle and reuse as efficiently as possible, but that directive had eventually lead to things going horribly wrong. It was expected, if this place had been abandoned to its own devices for that long.

Though already cramped for space, the Doctor managed to swing round so that both feet were pressed firmly against the ceiling. Changing the setting one more time, he waited for them to push the magic button. Normally he'd only give himself a 50/50 chance of surviving, but his luck had been especially good today. He'd put himself at a full 70/30.

All planets had souls, even those that were made out of steel and plastic. Those planets developed a will to survive past whatever their inhabitants put them through. The cries in his mind at the moment of the destruction of the Time Lords were only surpassed by the moaning, mournful howl of Gallifrey itself as it disintegrated into a special kind of nothingness: never is, was, or would be.

They were leaving him in here, he thought. They were leaving him in the confined space, anticipating his doom, trying to invoke the type of frenzied emotion that'd hold this place together for one more day. It was a perfectly logical thing to do. He was a much more difficult case than a small child. Violet had the key they were seeking and she'd certainly be easier to restrain now that she was separated from him.

It was a plan worthy of a Dalek, the Doctor decided.

Yes, those damned Daleks. Everywhere, every time, they were there. Even in death, they were wreaking their destruction.

Without any larger intelligence to guide it, this planet, and its robotic personnel had become literal, absolute and fanatical about the recycling. It had probably taken centuries or millennia, but it had discovered the efficiency of the organic material or before the inevitable failure of its own power source. Abandoned, the power should have wound down, breaking the planet apart and either scattering the remains throughout the solar system, or vaporizing them in some spectacular final hurrah for the power supply.

Instead, it pulled ships out of space, as it had the TARDIS. Assuming equipment failure, the ship's crew would scavenge the apparently fortuitous landscape, then would be consumed by the planet, their life force used to power the place and their organic material used to increase the functionality of the robot-assistants to the planet.

And the Doctor knew the exact moment that this change in tactic and priority had happened for the refuse world. The moment a squadron of Daleks had fallen from the Time War to this planet, hurt or incapacitated, and it had gotten a taste of just that sort ruthless, targeted, narrow sense of purpose…things had truly turned sinister from there.

"Can ya fry me already? Liquidate me or something, cuz it's boring and bright in here, 'case ya haven't noticed!" The Doctor was so tired of waiting. He had a planet to destroy, after all.

XYZ

Fresh out of ideas, Violet sat at the edge of the catwalk, staring into the whirlpool. It was sort of…hypnotic, like watching the teeny tiny cars go by from her grandfather's office window.

She was supposed to have made it back to the TARDIS—she had both keys, and no idea how to get to the ship. The Doctor was supposed to have destroyed the battery. Now, she was here with the battery, and he was…somewhere that wasn't here. She didn't know how to destroy it. She didn't know if she ought to even try—what if the planet broke apart and she couldn't get to the surface? What if she couldn't find the Doctor before that happened?

"You will be processed," the planet rumbled above her head. So far, no one knew where she was. Which meant they were talking about 'processing' the Doctor.

Violet was the one who'd wanted something 'fun' to do. Maybe it was time to reassess her definition of 'fun.'

TBC…


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimers am gewd. Thanks to Erica for betaing is awesomes.

XYZ

"Sunshine People"

Chapter 7

XYZ

When the Doctor hit the unforgiving ground, he decided he was going to develop a phobia about falling from great heights. He already had one, truth be told. In that brief second before he hit the ground, he'd always think 'here we go again—another regeneration,' and he'd be inevitably surprised when he hit the ground, and didn't actually die.

And he was glad, too. Rose: worth using a regeneration on. Annoying robots: not worth regenerating for. Which is why he was glad he only whacked his head off the floor hard enough to see stars, and not hard enough to wake up seeing a whole different person.

They'd made him wait just shy of forever before they pressed the button to begin the liquidation process. Just as they depressed it, the Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at the ceiling and scrambled the signal that would have emanated from the walls in an energy burst.

As the side walls opened at the bottom and vacuums prepared to suck his should-have-been-reduced parts into various vats, he pushed with all of his might, forcing the bottom to drop out of the floor, taking him to where the remaining non-material bits of his being should have ended up.

Hence the falling. Hence the hitting of the shiny metal footbridge, and his head, and the seeing stars before his vision cleared, and he realized where he'd ended up. Squinting against the stars and the snow blindness, the Doctor watched the pretty swirls over his head. It was like the northern lights. But with life-force energy from who knew how many once-living beings.

"Can we go now?" an impatient voice called out from below him.

Looking down and across the upward spiral of energy, he saw Violet, sitting cross-legged on another catwalk, like she'd been waiting for him all along. "I thought I told you UP. To the TARDIS." Eww. Did he just say that? That was so… well, his dad. He was going to start growing mould at any moment, and then it'd all be over.

Climbing to her feet, she tucked her wild hair behind her ears (which was only marginally effectual—she still looked like lion with a course, frazzled mane), then folded her arms over the dark blue turtle neck. "Yeah. Those tunnels… don't open from the inside. SOMEBODY, and I'm not gunna say who, took the sonic staple remover off of me, and didn't give me his screwdriver. So here's where I got."

The Doctor began looking for a way off the elevated walk way, and down to where she was. "Cupboard doors. All falling off at once," he reminded, climbing down to the next level, which was an annoyingly narrow catwalk running perpendicular to the one he'd landed upon.

She must have really thought he'd forget that bit of orchestrated chaos. He didn't normally need a ton of sleep (which made it so blissful during that whole six hours of quiet when she was in bed), but he'd been up for about three days straight, trying to get all the time gyros working together with the space sensors. All he'd really been looking for was a quiet morning and a quick nap, and she'd come bounding into the control room, demanding breakfast.

Obliging, he stumbled into the kitchen and promptly zoned out with his hand in the cereal box, thinking deep thoughts about the problem with the space sensors, and how they weren't accepting relative input from some other systems…

The noise had been colossal, the spray of cereal caused by him ducking for cover had been magnificent, and laugh the girl let out had been slightly evil. So, yeah. No more sonic devices for the tot. Call him crazy.

The girl shrugged naively, as if those round little eyes could somehow convey an innocence he knew she didn't feel toward the matter. "I like the 'everything else' setting."

Grabbing her hand, he used the sonic screwdriver in question to locate one of those now-famous invisible doors in the four-story chamber. "Right. I'll just hand you this thing, with all of its settings, and you can try every last one."

A door slid open finally, and Violet dragged him through. "Now you've got it."

He closed the door behind them, and it slid closed with just the slightest rushing sound. The next chamber wound upward like a very strange shell. They followed the yellow brick road, though—they were practically on top of the battery. "I wasn't serious."

She let out a tiny huff. "Poop." No wonder he'd gotten the impression that raising Violet thus far had been a team effort. She was a handful and a half.

XYZ

Legs swinging back and forth, Violet sat atop the generator while the Doctor worked. "We should get a cat." She'd never sold mum on the cat thing. It was time to try the Doctor.

Reaching inside the machine, the Doctor's entire arm disappeared as he dug around in there. "Right. We'll call him Snowball, and he can crawl inside the TARDIS controls and chew on the wires." Eyes rolled up at the short ceiling of the inner battery, the Doctor continued tugging and pulling on cables and hoses.

Violet didn't think it was nearly as funny when HE was sarcastic. She stuck her tongue out. "I'll call him Tiger Stripes, cuz he's gunna have stripes, and he'll live in my room. When I was at home, I read this one website about teaching cats to use the toilet, and getting them to flush and everything. And I'll teach it to behave and sit up and do tricks."

Pulling out a handful of wires, the Doctor began rearranging them. "I'm sure that'll work out. Training cats has got to be right up there with herding them."

The girl was silent for a moment, thinking about that—it had been deep.

Picking her up, the Doctor placed her on the ground. "Think about it—what're the odds that, one, a cat will do anything it's told? And two, that we won't get the ONE CAT that's really a blood sucking alien, infested with blood sucking aliens, or the scout party for blood sucking aliens?" Pulling the little box out of his pocket that he'd intended to turn into a fish bowl, the Doctor began connecting the dangling wires to the battery generator. Mostly it was good at automating processes. Automating a self-destructing energy pulse would do just fine.

Trying to be helpful (because she was SO TERRIBLY bored—she wanted to be mucking with this stuff too, not just watching, while he completely DIDN'T explain what he was doing—which even Mickey would do when she was hanging around him), Violet held up the thick patch of bound-together wires the Doctor was trying to attach the box to. "I think you're fixated on these blood sucking aliens. Which probably aren't even real."

Grabbing her hand, he dragged her out of the room. "You won't be saying that when your blood gets sucked out by one."

"Point."

That bit work complete, the Doctor found a hatch leading up, out of the heart of the generator. While he undid the lock, Violet stole a glance back down the spiral ramp. "Of course… we haveta not get liquefied first."

"Working on it," the Doctor sighed, the hatch in the ceiling flipping down, lifelessly.

Violet tugged on his pant leg. "No. Really. I think we're about to be processed.

The Doctor looked behind him, seeing what the girl was talking about. These robots were more fleshed out, quicker moving, and… armed. "Great. And guess who just set the timer for five minutes?"

Violet didn't even look back at him, she was transfixed by the bulkier machines. "The same person who hid the sonic staple remover?"

"Oh, yeah. " the Doctor said casually, assessing the ten—no twenty—thirty creatures. "Mighta been that same fellow."

XYZ

"You will be processed…" the walls rumbled around them. The Doctor didn't wait. He scooped Violet up and thrust her through the upper hatch, mostly just hoping she had something to hold on to.

She spun around, looking at him angrily. "You'd better be comin,' or I'm staying here!"

The first row of ten raised their guns. Could be gas, could be death-rays for all he knew. He just didn't want to find out. "Violet, now's not a time to argue…" he ground out one side of his mouth, preparing to toss her the screwdriver, just so she'd stop fussing. "Hidy-ho, there, gents. I was just telling the whipper-snapper about how we needed to work together, and sometimes working together means doing what you're told…" The barrels all trained towards his chest suddenly.

Hand wrapped around heavy wires, Violet used them to balance herself as she stuck her head out the hole. "I don't want to get separated again." She didn't think she could make it to the surface on her own. Violet desperately wanted to learn what he had to teach, but she wasn't 'into' the whole trial-by-fire thing that had been going on here.

Hands still raised in surrender, The Doctor stole a glance toward the hatch. She didn't look frightened, just anxious to not be left alone again. "Alright." His voice was quiet and collected. He'd think of something. He always did. "We leave together." And very soon. His internal clock, which was better than Swiss, told him he had three-point-seven-eight minutes, and counting.

Holding his breath, the Doctor tapped his foot inside his shoe. Curious… their thin, gangly rifle-like weapons were still raised, but they weren't doing anything. The guns were no-frills at all, like they had also been 'just born' for this occasion.

He had a feeling if they let this go on any longer, there'd be an army of robots with an entire fleshed out and frightening arsenal. "Well?" Giving each of them a critical look, he sniffed the sterile air. "Are we shooting me, or are we not shooting me?"

The Doctor wished very much that he could convince Violet to just go without him. At the very least, she'd get out and be free. If he could trust the TARDIS to act batty and take him to places he didn't want to be, he could trust the ship to just get her out of there, to any safe destination.

He'd certainly be a lot freer to work his special magic if he didn't have to worry about her getting hit by ricochet, caught, or worse. The anxious pull of her lips and the upward arch of her brow were enough to convince him that she wasn't going to go willingly, and he hadn't the time nor the heart to scold her into leaving. Besides… they just… weren't firing. "Hmm… any day now…"

The universe seemed bent on making him wait as of late. Look at how long he'd had to wait for Violet to come into his life? Then the endless waiting (over an hour!) in that storage locker as the whole explody-reality thing sorted itself out.

"You will be processed."

Finally. He'd been waiting like… fifteen seconds. Which gave him three and a half minutes in which to affect a spectacular escape. "Alright, then."

The front line broke and moved to surround him on either side. The next row's weapons were trained on him already, and the third's above him, at the open hatch. If wishes were fishes, when he looked back, Violet's head wouldn't be sticking out of that hole.

Apparently, wishes were, indeed fishes, because she was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they'd focus on him, and let her go. Perhaps she'd actually listen for once. Perhaps pigs would fly.

"The child will present herself for containment." The sheet metal surrounding the outside of the battery generator vibrated, giving off a high pitched whine that tickled his ears.

They were still after the key; they didn't know she had one that WASN'T floating around her digestive track.

'Violet,' his mind shouted to hers, no attention being paid to barriers of politeness or convention. 'Run. Up. Now.'

From somewhere above him, deep within the upper service chamber, he heard the echoes of a childish voice declaring with open defiance, "NO."

This whole gallivanting around the universe with a child thing was NOT going to work. Assuming, of course, they lived to gallivant another day.

XYZ

Then again… this gallivanting around the universe with a child thing just might not be so bad after all. They'd have to have a talk about the defiance thing, but really… it was beautiful. He'd really have to ask her how she managed it. You know, when they weren't running for their lives.

The Doctor was a pretty good guesser, though. She must have found a waste line and had somehow managed to not only work it free, but disrupt the energy flow into normally-solid ceiling tiles. He thought for sure the creatures were going to open fire when she came tumbling from between the invisible cracks. It was only by chance he snagged her before SHE got a taste of the abuse gravity had been dealing him all day. They were kids, they bounced—but now wasn't the time to experiment on just how high and far.

Especially when the girl's mind was radiating 'RUN,' so loudly it was echoing off the walls of his skull. He didn't bother to ask why or how, he simply bowled between the creatures, ignoring the guns and their slashing talon-like hands. It had to be important, if she wanted to go THROUGH the evil, yet armed, robots.

Fortunately their guns were too long for them to fire at such a close range, and before the recycling robots could adjust, the loose ceiling erupted with the gelatinous stink of a river of fat pouring down upon them.

And this? This was an enormous breach. Every cleaning device in the place swarmed for the mess, which had penetrated the metallic cloth skin of the robots. Clearing away the fatty mess, the disks didn't differentiate between the escaped fat and the organic creature parts to which they were now so close.

The Doctor didn't wait to see how it all worked itself out, especially when the walls and spiral ramp began to loose their viscosity, rumbling beneath them. He clutched Violet haphazardly to his chest, trying to find a way up.

Seeing that it was all going to collapse, the Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at what he assumed to be a single plate unit and pressed the button. Disrupting the field still further, the plate beneath his feet separated entirely from rest, sliding across the trembling plates, twisting around and around the unstable unit, all the way to the bottom.

Violet let out a whoop as they slid and twirled downward, and he knew he needed to put his foot down. "Do NOT try this at home. And secondly, we're going to have a talk about ground rules after this."

He breathed heavily as he scolded her, and when they hit the bottom floor, he jumped before the plate crashed into the more-stable ground. Aiming the sonic screwdriver in random directions, searching for egress, it was all the Doctor could do to keep from grinning himself silly.

A door slid open at the end of the hall, trembling as it did so. The whole place was primed thanks to Violet, and his own efforts at destroying the battery were going to tear the place apart almost instantly, now. He'd taught her next to nothing; any fast thinking or ingenuity the girl displayed was entirely Rose's doing, but he couldn't stop the insane pride from flaring up in his chest.

It was such a domesticated feeling, and there would have been some sort of revulsion there, if they weren't running through brightly lit tunnels on a planet ready to pull itself apart.

Staring over the Doctor's shoulder, Violet's eyes grew wide. "We need to go up now!"

The Doctor could feel it, he didn't need to look; the chamber behind them was trembling. He just concentrated on finding that as-yet non-existent way up.

To Be Concluded…


	8. Chapter 8

Standard disclaimers, dis-standard claimers, yadda dee yadda doo. Thanks to Erica for the beta, and thanks to Krypto for making me stop.

…Also, if I'm slow replying to your reviews, it's cuz I'm gunna be tied up for the next few days having surgery and those heartless bastards at the hospital don't have wireless

XYZ

"Sunshine People"

Chapter 8

XYZ

The Doctor's mind seemed to come to a screeching halt. There was the need for up, there was the total lack of up, and there was his teeth rattling…

The shining floor beneath them was clattering as the plates began to loosen. A few more hoses and pipes had let loose, forcing steam and other miscellaneous things to come shooting out and through the wall plates behind him.

Which inspired a simply marvelous idea, if he did say so himself—and he did.

Running back TOWARDS the shaking chamber, he began looking around for a mess. Still holding onto his neck, Violet muttered something about "the antithesis of a plan," but he didn't pay much attention. He needed to just get on with this, if it was going to work.

Stopping at a splatter, he put her down when the cleaning disks came. One patched the pipe while seven others cleared the chunky liquid off the trembling floor. Waiting until they were done, he aimed the sonic screwdriver at one, causing it to hesitate and not zoom off with the others.

Kneeling next to it, he flipped it over, looking at its cleverly simple interior. "Oh, I've still got a few plans left in me," he told the girl, as he began re-imagining the brain of the thing. Finished, he flipped it back over, changed to setting 875 and informed it to call over its little buddies.

"Right-o. See? I can handle up." Not waiting for another smart remark on her part, he grabbed her hand and they hopped on the mass of cleaners that had assembled. It was a good thing too, the tiles beneath them were swishing back and forth, as if they were ice floating on water.

He'd programmed them to seek the surface, and the TARDIS' living material, and was kind of shocked when the ceiling plates actually separated and rearranged to allow them passage. And upward they went, the plates and cables trembling around them, things sliding back and forth as they went up through the floors.

The scraping sounds were increasing, and so was the acrid and very dead smell of the released fluids. Other cleaning disks scooted past in the opposite direction, going towards each successive new eruption of a pipe or valve, trying to contain it all.

The Doctor held Violet close to him, practically pushing her small body into his leg. He'd be damned if he made it this far only to have her lose her balance, or something else equally stupid.

Something… like…say…the timed charge hitting zero. Something like a wave passing through as the energy from the once-living beings redirected, having no receiver to collect it, passing through everything in its wake until it dissipated.

They continued upward, everything around them losing viscosity as the battery failed. Things fell as their solidity failed, past them and onto them. The Doctor leaned over the girl, attempting to shield her from the worst of the debris.

When he could see beautiful, natural non-eye-stabbing light, the girl stiffened in his grasp. "Oh no," Violet muttered, her arms clamping around his leg, her nails digging into flesh that really could have done without the Jackie Tyler manicure lacerations.

Hand on her shoulder, he almost begged her off, until he felt it too—the cleaners losing speed, trembling… then breaking apart with the surface in sight. He gripped her tighter, but as they hit that moment of weightlessness that always preceded freefall, he didn't really see what good it'd do.

XYZ

As consciousness slowly returned, the Doctor did some checks. He could feel all of his limbs… fingers, toes, all those fine appendages. On the other side of his eyelids (which he hadn't yet chanced to open), there was some kind of light. It wasn't the blinding blue-white brightness of the insides of the junk planet, but he wasn't lying in a pit of blackness, which ruled out him having fallen to the depths of the planet, or floating around in the darkness of space (that whole thing where his body imploded aside).

Wiping his tongue around his teeth, he ventured to guess that he hadn't regenerated (really—he was obsessing over it. Ya fall from one communications tower and regenerate, and it invades every third thought for the next several hundred years). Slowly opening his eyes, he closed them again a moment later, deciding from the pain level that he'd either gotten a royal conk on the head, or he'd imbibed a keg all on his own.

Oh he did so hate being unconscious. There was no telling what had transpired in all that time. He could be who-knew-where, Violet could be…

Forcing his eyes open, he looked up at the control column in the TARDIS. Well, that was promising at least.

Maybe he'd just fallen asleep.

Was it too much to ask that the whole last day had just been a bad, if very vivid, dream? It sure had seemed like a dream. Being trapped within the planet—it had been like running and running and never getting anywhere. Or continually not finding the secret to advancing to the next level in a video game. And then once he'd found it…everything had come tumbling down around them…quite literally. It also seemed to have made about as much sense as some of his dreams.

If that were the case, how far could that particular line of logic play out? What about the whole last week—or worse, the last month? Looking around the control room, he found himself to be entirely alone. Was it even possible that the whole last month that he'd spent, getting to know Violet, had all been some kind of fantastic cranial-trauma dream? He'd be really, REALLY upset, mostly with himself, if that were the case. And if so, what strange corner of his mind had she crawled out of?

As his senses returned, he could hear the ship cranking through space and time, the pistons sliding up and down in the control column. The ship itself hummed with life, seemingly pretty content with herself. Grabbing hold of the railing near his head, he dragged himself to a sitting position and let out a moan. "I'd ask what happened, but I know you wouldn't tell me."

The TARDIS hummed on, oblivious to the inquiry.

Taking in a few deep breath to clear the thorough head-scrambling, something bit at his nostrils. Something was burning.

Stumbling to his feet, he glared at the control column, as if that would somehow get the ship to 'fess up. It seemed suspicious that she'd allow something to burn somewhere within her, and hadn't filtered the air had something slipped by her internal sensors. "I really don't understand what it is that I've done to raise your ire," he grumbled to the ship, heading off towards the smell.

XYZ

From the doorway, Violet heard a sharp intake of breath, and she paused, her mouth hovering open and the toast at her lips. "I don't want to know."

Ever so slowly, her gaze met the Doctor's. He was leaning against the doorjamb, running a hand through his hair, the way he always did when he was Captain Insano-tired. She wasn't a big fan of sleeping, but he seemed to take it to a whole new level. The number of times she'd actually seen him sleep could probably be counted on one hand.

He tapped his head against the door frame a few times, letting out a long puff of air between his closed lips. It was probably true that he could go to sleep standing up right now, but it was also very obviously true that she was in trouble.

Attempting to pretend like she hadn't noticed his rather…severe reaction, she bit into the toast, concentrating as hard as possible on chewing, then began counting silently to ten.

She got to eight before he even moved. Taking only one step into the kitchen, he began patting all of his pockets. "Where is my sonic screwdriver?"

Violet tried to innocuously tug her napkin over it, but she was caught, fair and square. She tried to chuckle innocently as the Doctor sauntered over to retrieve his nicked tool. "I was hungry."

The Doctor looked around at the destruction. Only one of the cupboard doors was less than functional, hanging at a diagonal from its top hinge. There were singed crumbs all over the table, four pieces of carbon shaped like bread slices, one entirely exploded appliance, and another shooting both sparks and foam. "NOT a toy."

The girl shoved the rest of the toast into her mouth, then brushed the crumbs from her hands. "Number seven," she said. "It's the best."

"Ooohkay." Walking over to her, he put a hand on the back of her chair, suddenly realizing why the large packet of instructions hand-written by Rose, detailing 'care and feeding' for Violet, explicitly stated she was not allowed to make anything more complicated than a sandwich for herself (and not anything that involved a condiment or a knife).

Priming a planet to blow and destroying killer robots with their own cleaning devices seemed a little far off for the girl at the moment, or possibly a little Rain Man.

Avoiding asking the most obvious questions, the Doctor stopped the sparking, foaming and slightly rabid looking appliance then fixed the cupboard door. It allowed him a few minutes to his thoughts.

Back to the table, the Doctor swung the door back and forth on its repaired hinge. "So…tell me how this all worked itself out." Sounded open-ended enough.

Violet took the hint that it was time to at least make it look like she was trying to help clear her mess and began pushing the burnt crumbs into a pile. "First, I tried to get THAT thing to work," she pointed to the now-exploded appliance. "Then I broke that one…" she pointed to the formerly-foaming appliance. "And I tried to fix it, but that's how I found out what number seven did…so then I tried to just toast the toast with it…" She frowned, growing thoughtful. "Also, I think we're going to need more cheese. Seven's my new favorite setting, by the way."

The Doctor slid the object of their tussle into his breast coat pocket. Out of sight, out of mind, he hoped. "This is a little difficult for me…mostly because I never wanted to turn into my father, but you realize there's going to be no pocket money this week."

She shrugged, indifferently. "Yeah. I figured that out about the time I disintegrated the cheese with two-two-two. Well, it's not disintegrated, exactly. The stuff that melted, then vaporized is probably still stuck to the inside of the toilet walls…"

Overwhelmed by the absurdity, the Doctor started laughing and crushed her in a giant bear hug. "There's a reason why children are adorable. It's so we don't kill you when you're young."

The words were a bit harsh, but there was such adoration in the way it was said, Violet had to hug him back. "Yeah. It's why baby animals have big heads, too. I think you're crushing me." She let out a fake choking cough.

Letting go, he looked her square in the eye, grinning. "Alright. YOU get to pick where we go next." He held up a finger. "IF you can tell me how I ended up on the floor in the control room."

Violet shrugged, her face practically breaking from the grin spread there. The cat that ate the canary, that was her, alright. "Well, first we were going up, then we weren't going anywhere at all, and then we were going back down, and we very nearly almost smashed into the ground. Well, it wasn't the ground. It was actually the center of the planet, which was molten metal, or so the TARDIS says, but anyhow, we were going straight for it, but the TARDIS caught us. I landed on you, and you landed on the floor, head first. Which totally musta hurt. I was gunna tie you up and take the screwdriver, just ta test it out, you see, but TARDIS said you could get out of any knot I could tie in lickidy split time, so I just poked ya ta make sure you were out, and then I made some dinner. Or tried to. I'm still hungry, by the way."

Her rapid-fire recap almost made HIS head spin, and suddenly the Doctor realized just how bombastic and annoying he'd been for the last nine centuries. That was one of the powers of children, he supposed…they had the ability to reflect something of yourself that you'd never seen before. "So, where to?" AFTER they cleaned up all these messes, of course.

Lips pressed tightly together and brow furrowed, Violet thought about it. "Dunno. Some place not quite so bright. Maybe back to the planet with three suns," she teased.

The Doctor rubbed her head, smashing her wild hair back and forth. "Too bright for ya?"

Violet shrugged. "Just as long as my eyeballs don't pop out, and the place isn't filled with those people, sunshine still isn't all that bad."

THE END.

Thanks again for putting up with this fic for so many chapters. To the folks who left feedback saying they enjoyed it—thank you very much. I had fun writing, and it's always just a bit more fun knowing someone else is getting some fun out of it too. So much fun, so little time : )


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